Anthony Elonis, 31, of Freemansburg, who has argued he was wrongly imprisoned on federal charges in a Facebook threat case, is now charged in a Freemansburg domestic assault.

Anthony Elonis, 31, of Freemansburg, who has argued he was wrongly imprisoned on federal charges in a Facebook threat case, is now charged in a Freemansburg domestic assault. (THE MORNING CALL/CONTRIBUTED)

While the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on whether a Freemansburg man was wrongly imprisoned for threats of violence on Facebook, he has been arrested on charges he hit his girlfriend's mother with a pot.

Anthony Elonis, 31, was convicted in 2011 of five counts of interstate communication of threats. In his trial, federal prosecutors presented testimony from his estranged wife, former co-workers and law enforcement officials who were the subject of Facebook posts describing dark fantasies.

Freemansburg police said Elonis' girlfriend's mother was trying to kick him out of her home at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday when an argument broke out. Police said Elonis threw a pot, hitting Maureen Kipp, 52, in the forehead and breaking her glasses.

Police spent several hours searching for Elonis before arresting him Tuesday night.

Elonis was charged with domestic violence-related simple assault and harassment. He was sent to Northampton County Prison under $5,000 bail.

On his Facebook page, Elonis makes several references to his federal case, including a post in which he comments on the 44 months he served in federal prison for his "entertainment."

December 2014: The U.S. Supreme Court said a jury should have weighed the intent and not just the lyrics of a rap posted to Facebook by Anthony Elonis of Freemansburg.

December 2014: The U.S. Supreme Court said a jury should have weighed the intent and not just the lyrics of a rap posted to Facebook by Anthony Elonis of Freemansburg.

In another post, Elonis "likes" a photo posted to his page showing several newspaper clippings of articles about the case.

Authorities said that in 2010, Elonis described a 9/11-style attack on Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom, where he had worked as a manager. In another, styled as rap lyrics, he wrote about smothering his wife, Tara, with a pillow and dumping her body in a creek.

When Elonis posted about massacring a class of kindergarteners, it attracted the attention of the FBI. And after an agent paid a visit to his home and Elonis posted rap lyrics about wearing a bomb and slitting the agent's throat, they moved in and arrested him.

Elonis, then of Lower Saucon Township, testified in his own defense that the violent lyrics were a kind of therapy that helped him cope with setbacks in his life, including the loss of his job and his wife and children leaving him. But jurors concluded the posts were taken as threats by those who read them, and convicted him on all but one charge.

Elonis appealed his conviction, but ultimately served 44 months in prison, including the time he was held before trial. He was released from federal prison in February 2014.

The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Elonis' conviction in 2013, finding the fact a reasonable person finds a message threatening is enough to place it in the category of "true threats," which are excluded from First Amendment protection.

After his release, he won a victory when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last June to consider his appeal. The arguments in December attracted national attention because Elonis' case was the high court's first review of free speech rights since social media became part of everyday life.

The justices heard arguments that centered on the prosecutor's burden of proof to establish that a threat had been made. Federal appeals courts around the country have disagreed whether it is sufficient for a message to be regarded as threatening by the recipient, or whether it was intended as a threat.

Attorney John Elwood noted that in several of the posts, which prompted Elonis' wife to obtain a protection-from-abuse order, Elonis had included disclaimers that the lyrics were therapeutic and for entertainment purposes only. They may have been received as threats but clearly were not intended as such, he said.

Justice Samuel Alito took a skeptical view, comparing the claim to "a road map for threatening a spouse and getting away with it." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned how a prosecutor could prove a person's intent.

Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben argued that whether a message is regarded as a threat is the correct standard for determining guilt.

Justice Elena Kagan probed for a legal standard somewhere between what the two sides outlined. She said the court typically has allowed for a "buffer zone" and has shied away from restricting speech so closely that some innocent expression is suppressed.

Dreeben argued that social media websites such as Facebook allow a user to choose his or her audience by using privacy options.

The court is expected to issue a decision in June.

In addition to prison time, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel ordered Elonis to serve three years of supervised release, which began with his release from prison in February 2013.

But in November, federal probation officials filed court papers asking the court to modify the terms of his release to bar any contact with prosecutors or FBI agents.

According to the filing, Elonis sent a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri A. Stephan in April 2013 while he was still serving his sentence in the federal prison at Fort Dix, N.J., in which he identified himself by name.

In the letter, he noted his release from prison was rapidly approaching and said he wanted to research the ordinances in the municipality where Stephan resides.

"I simply do not wish to run afoul of any of them when I set fire to a cross in your yard. :-p," Elonis wrote in a reference to a Supreme Court decision that a Virginia law criminalizing cross-burning as proof of an intent to threaten people was unconstitutional.

"I just thought you would appreciate my new found respect for the law," he wrote, signing the letter "Your BFF Anthony Douglas Elonis."